1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a method of cleaning a detector and the like including a magnetic head of photographic sensitive material processing equipment by using the cleaning leader, a cartridge for storing the cleaning leader, a material suitable for the cleaning leader, a system for distinguishing a cleaning member from a photographic sensitive material, and a cleaning member having a configuration suited to the system.
2. Description of the Related Art
A transport path for transporting a photographic sensitive material such as film in photographic sensitive material processing equipment is vulnerable to an accumulation of dust from the film in the course of repeated film transport. Such dust adversely affects the transport of the photographic sensitive material. Particularly, in the case of a film having a magnetic recording section for use in an advanced photographic system, a magnetic layer and a protective layer for protecting the magnetic layer may become separated and adhere to the magnetic head. This lowers the reading precision of the magnetic head.
To avoid such a situation, cleaning operations are carried out on a regular basis to clean the film transport path and the magnetic head and sensors arranged on the transport path. Techniques used in such cleaning operations include a head cleaner disclosed in Japanese Utility Model Publication S63-38416 (known technique 1), a cleaning card disclosed in Japanese Patent Laying-Open Publication H3-203806 (known technique 2), and a special photographic film disclosed in Japanese Patent Laying-Open Publication H5-225532 (known technique 3).
Incidentally, a cloth such as a nonwoven cloth is not suited for use in cleaning since it has a self dust creating nature whereby the fibers constituting the cloth become napped and fall off during a long period of use for cleaning purposes. Thus, known technique 1 uses a cleaning tape having numerous pores formed therein to hold a cleaning solution. This cleaning tape is stored in a cassette tape case for use. In such a use condition, rigidity is not required of the cleaning member. However, in equipment for processing a photographic sensitive material such as photographic film, the cleaning member must have a certain degree of rigidity to be transported in an effective way through the transport path. The reason is that the construction of the photographic sensitive material processing equipment makes it difficult to carry out a cleaning operation with the cleaning member stored in the case like cassette tape.
Known technique 2 relates to a cleaning card having a nonwoven cloth applied to one surface of a thin substrate and defining numerous pores, to be usable both as the wet type and as the dry type. However, this cleaning card includes burs formed outside the substrate for use as the dry type, which could damage the magnetic head. This cleaning card cannot be said well suited for cleaning purposes.
Known technique 3 uses a photographic film defining level differences (ridges, recesses, or holes) for cleaning a magnetic head. Since a photograph film is used also for cleaning purposes, the film has the rigidity to withstand transport, but only particular portions of the photographic film are available for cleaning.
In dealing with the disadvantages of the above known techniques, Inventors have taken up synthetic fibers which are materials different from a nonwoven cloth. Among these synthetic fibers is one known as wiping cloth. The wiping cloth is characterized by minimal self dust creation. With this characteristic, the wiping cloth has also the advantage of being usable both as the dry type and as the wet type. The wiping cloth can be used in manufacture of magneto-optic disks, cleaning of printed circuit boards, and manufacture of contact lenses. Inventors have found that the wiping cloth may also be used for cleaning photographic sensitive material processing equipment.
Although suited for cleaning photographic sensitive material processing equipment, the wiping cloth has a drawback of lacking in rigidity so that it cannot pass smoothly through the transport path in the photographic sensitive material processing equipment. The rigidity to withstand transport is required particularly when cleaning the magnetic head of the photographic sensitive material processing equipment. It is troublesome and undesirable to remove the magnetic head in such a case and wipe dirt off the magnetic head with a cotton pin or the like. It has therefore been necessary to increase rigidity in order to use such a synthetic fiber for automatically cleaning the to make it be possible to launder equipment of the processing of material of the photographic sensitive material processing equipment.